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8 Jun 2025 6:48
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  •   Home > News > Health & Safety

    Israeli strike on European Hospital in southern Gaza kills at least 16 people

    The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) says it was targeting an underground Hamas command and control centre, but Palestinian officials insist no such structure exists.


    British surgeon Tom Potokar was resting after a long day in the operating theatre on May 13 when the missiles landed.

    He had just crawled into bed, in the nurses quarters of the the European Hospital in southern Gaza, and the relative calm was shattered.

    "There was a series of very significant loud explosions, much more than the normal explosions," he told the ABC from a corridor of the hospital in Khan Younis.

    "I got thrown off the bed, it went on for a few moments — I think there were six to nine very, very intense explosions.

    "I came outside immediately to the entrance to the hospital, [and] there were two huge craters, a few people wounded lying there. [It was] mayhem, people screaming, people running around."

    Israel's military had launched a series of missiles at the European Hospital in Khan Younis.

    The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) says it was targeting an underground Hamas command and control centre.

    The attack not only damaged the hospital, but destroyed water and sewage connections.

    The intensive care unit was full at the time of the strike, according to intensive care doctor Milena Chee.

    "Among them are three children, and they are all very, very sick, on ventilators, they have nowhere to go," she said.

    "We did what we could for them.

    "Everybody who could move out is not here anymore — still, intensive care is full of patients, who we are struggling to evacuate because other neighbouring critical care [wards] remain full."

    Dr Chee said the volunteer doctors, who are working with the international charity Ideals, are now waiting to see if they also have to be evacuated.

    Gaza's health system has been crippled during more than 18 months of war, with medical facilities repeatedly targeted in strikes.

    Medical professionals have also being killed or arrested by the IDF.

    Supplies are running desperately low after almost three months of a total humanitarian aid blockade of the strip.

    IDF insists Hamas command centre lies beneath hospital

    Palestinian health authorities say at least 16 people were killed in the attack on the European Hospital, and more than 70 were injured.

    Hamas has rejected the IDF's allegation that a Hamas command and control centre was buried beneath the compound.

    It has accused Israel of continuing to attack hospitals despite their protected status under international law.

    CCTV of the hospital car park shows people milling around in the moments before the first missile hit, sending people flying through the air.

    Israeli officials are confident one of Hamas's top leaders, Mohammed Sinwar, was killed in the strike, although that could take days or weeks to confirm.

    Sinwar succeeded his brother Yahya as Hamas's de facto leader in Gaza, after he was killed by Israeli forces in October last year.

    If he is confirmed as having been killed, it will be a significant blow for Hamas's senior officials.

    It would also undermine Hamas's argument it does not use hospitals as safe havens for its fighters.

    © 2025 ABC Australian Broadcasting Corporation. All rights reserved

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